1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to tape cassettes and, more particularly, to a tape cassette having different light transmission properties along its upper half.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A typical tape cassette is disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,672,498 which issued on June 9, 1987. In this conventional tape cassette, there is provided a cassette housing formed of a lower half and an upper half molded of a transparent synthetic resin. Reel hubs are incorporated into the cassette housing to carry a wound magnetic tape. The upper half is molded of an opaque synthetic resin such as a colored or smoked synthetic resin except for window portions through which the reel hubs can be visually observed.
The aforementioned conventional tape cassette has a housing which is molded of a single layer structure. There is also a known tape cassette having a housing of a double layer structure. This latter type is disclosed in Japanese Laid Open utility model application no. 60-12875. In this latter tape cassette, the whole surface of the cassette half is molded of the inner wall material and an outer wall material of the same or different kind of plastic material by a laminate dichromatic molding process as a unitary structure, thereby form the cassette housing.
In the first mentioned tape cassette, only the base portion and the window portion of the cassette housing are distinguished from each other while in the latter mentioned type cassette, the base portion of the cassette housing is formed of inner and outer walls which are laminated over the entire surface so that the tape cassette has a uniform color. Thus, both of the tape cassettes described provide only two color tones on the base portion and the window portion of the cassette housing so that the above-mentioned conventional tape cassettes are limited in terms of providing a visually attractive design.